


Two

by sleazy_c



Series: Lokir of Rorikstead [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Vignette, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21979636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleazy_c/pseuds/sleazy_c
Summary: The Khajiit, surviving.
Series: Lokir of Rorikstead [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582192
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Two

Her hands were shaking. (Paws, the filthy Nord men called them, with gleaming eyes.) The adrenaline from the fight had led to an inevitable crash, but the health potion she’d sucked down had set her heart-rate at a gallop. 

Her nail-beds ached from having to use her claws after she dropped her sword. The Khajiit felt run-through by the damnable Skyrim cold, blood having soaked through the hide armor she’d stripped from a bandit the previous day. Some of the blood was hers, from wounds slowly knitting together with help from the potion, some was the old witch’s－her name was Anise, the Khajiit would discover later－who lie before her.

She hauled herself to her feet. After checking for no less than the sixth time that no one was in view of the witch’s cabin, she reached down, and grabbed the witch by her biceps, slowly dragging her into the cabin. The witch weighed so much less than the Khajiit expected.

In the corner of the cabin, the Khajiit found a door to the cellar, and after some struggling with the latch (she broke three lockpicks before her hands would stop shaking), she opened the door and threw the witch’s body in the cellar. Before she closed the door, she stripped herself of her soiled armor and used it to mop what blood she could from her fur, and dropped it into the cellar as well.

She stood for a moment, eyes closed, naked in the sunlight from the window, and breathed.

The armor had been of no importance to the Khajiit. It was the first thing she’d found after the overbearing Imperial armor she’d taken during hers and the Imperial Hadvar’s escape from the dragon attack in Helgen. She’d fought the bandits that attacked her upon leaving the city in a sort of trance, hardly registering the blows she was dealing and receiving. Afterward, she caught a scant few hours of sleep, too anxious in the bandits’ tent to be comfortable. Hadvar had told her to meet him in Riverwood, a short trip from the cave they escaped from, but the Khajiit’s habit of avoiding major roadways was deeply ingrained, and she wandered through the woods in a roundabout path to the town. That’s how she’d run into the witch, with her too-sharp eyes and her disingenuously gentle voice.

She opened her eyes, and went about hunting for something to wear. The dresser was bare, but she found an old robe on a cabinet next to some bulbs of garlic. It had retained the smell, but it was dry and soft with wear. 

Now that her heart-rate had slowed down, the Khajiit felt exhaustion rapidly catching up with her. Regardless of the lack of doors or proper windows making the fur on her neck stand up in anxiety, and regardless of the sun being high in the sky, she found herself crawling into the bed by the open window, warmed from the sun. She turned from the light, and found sleep quickly.

She awoke, panting, from a dream of the witch disemboweling her with an ice shard a short hour later. Opening her eyes and seeing the cellar door, she decided she would rather the sun shine in her eyes than sleep facing it. She rolled over, and slept again.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this one, and the previous one, both today, and have NO idea when my next one will be here. Forgive me. Also, I don't think there was a robe on a cabinet in Anise's Cabin, SUE ME


End file.
